IPv6 Covert Channels in the Wild

Details

Abstract

The increasing diffusion of malware endowed with steganographic techniques requires to carefully identify and evaluate a new set of threats. The creation of a covert channel to hide a communication within network traffic is one of the most relevant, as it can be used to exfiltrate information or orchestrate attacks. Even if network steganography is becoming a well-studied topic, only few works focus on IPv6 and consider real network scenarios. Therefore, this paper investigates IPv6 covert channels deployed in the wild. Also, it presents a performance evaluation of six different data hiding techniques for IPv6 including their ability to bypass some intrusion detection systems. Lastly, ideas to detect IPv6 covert channels are presented.

Authors

• Wojciech Mazurczyk
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  Warsaw University of Technology
  Warsaw, Poland
• Krystian Powójski
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  Warsaw University of Technology
  Warsaw, Poland
• Luca Caviglione
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  National Research Council of Italy
  Genoa, Italy